The Islanders will look to start another win streak tonight at the coliseum after dropping their last two games on the road. The Islanders will take on theThrashers, who are comign off a tough 4-3 loss to the Blue Jackets.

The Injury bug has reared its ugly head last night, Radik Martinek went down with a torn ACL in his right knee after a big hit along the boards.The injury will sideline Martinek for the rest of the season. Also the Isles lose Doug Weight for a week with an upper body injury.

Finally Check out IHB's Islelights for the month of October featuring the Black Eyed Peas "I Got a Feeling."

The Islanders started the week on a high Monday, beating Edmonton 3-1, earning their fourth straight win. That joy quickly turned to frustration as the Islanders have dropped a game to Buffalo, 3-0 and lost in New Jersey tonight, 2-1

The consensus in the Isles locker room tonight, “we should have won this game, one nothing.”

“We gave them their 2 goals. I gave them one and we got in penalty trouble and gave them the second,” Biron said after the game. “This could of been a game we could have won, one nothing…What they got we gave them, that’s the bottom line.”

The Islanders were the first to score, Sean Bergenhiem was able to center the puck to Frans Nielsen, whowas able to get one through Yann Danis legs. That would be the only goal in the first. The Devils would tie And take the lead off of a goal by Cory Murphy and a power play goal by Brian Rolston in the second. Both goals were “bad goals” that could have been stopped.

That would be all the Devils needed, Yann Danis stopped the other 23 shots he faced and got his secondwin as a Devil along with earning third star honors.

The Islanders, who had three power play opportunities, failed to convert on any of them. “On the power play were doing a great job on fixing what we weren’t good at in buffalo as far as entries,” Scott Gordon said. “But we have to set up and as a result were not getting scoring opportunities or shots.”

For the most part the Isles were very lack luster and Scott Gordon was not happy with their play through two periods. They took five penalties and failed to gain any momentum off of Nielsen’s first goal.“This was a game sitting their for us to take,” a frustrated Biron said. “We gave them the 2 goals.”

In the end the Islanders lack of play was what shot them in the foot. “we would have liked to win this game,” said Kyle Okposo. “we were right there in the game and we would have liked the 2 points.”

While we all nurse our World Series hang over’s, iv started to contemplate what the return of Rick Dipietro will really mean for the Islanders. I mean he’s just their franchise player (well at least he used to be, he’s been demoted to franchise goalie.)

Drafted in 2000, the Boston College protégé was picked up at the cost of losing Roberto Luongo (for better or worse) and has had solid career when healthy. Including representing his country in the 2006 Winter Olympics and playing in the 2008 All Star Game.

2008 Would also be the start of a long stint of injuries for the All Star.

I also don’t think it’s coincidental that the Islanders don’t play as well as when DP is in fully healthy. In the three and a half seasons Dipietro was healthy, the Isles made the play offs twice and in the 2007-2008, the Islanders were in the playoff hunt up until March.

In his two best seasons as an Isle, he post a .911 save percentage along with a 2.36 goals against average and .919 save percentage and 2.58 goals against average.

when healthy Dipietro is an All Star caliber net minder and the Islanders performance when he starts shows it. The 2009-2010 Islanders are a team with plenty of potential, which was highlighted during their four game win streak.

The wait is on now to see when/if Ricky comes back between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday and if he’s still the same all star caliber net minder we all remember. Only time will tell, but if history is any indication and Dipietro is healthy, the Islanders chances of success this season greatly increase.

Patrick Elias will make his season debut tonight against the Islanders and Yann Denis will be in net to face his former team (Denis beat the Bruins 2-1 last week which was his only appearance of the season so far). Rob Niedermayer will not be available for tonight's game due to an Upper Body Injury suffered during the Capitals game Wednesday night. Niedermayer joins Jay Pandolfo, Paul Martin, and Johnny Oduya among the unavailable players due to injury, a list that seems to grow every game

Some other things to note:

The Devils are 7-0 on the road, and less than stellar at home with a 2-4 record but are coming off a 3-2 victory over the Ovechkin-less Washington Capitals Wednesday night.

The Devils' record much better than that of the Islanders but the special teams and 5-on-5 play is certainly NOT the reason. PP: NYI-18.5%, NJ-17.6% | PK: NYI-80.4%, NJ-81.8% | 5-on-5 GF/GA: NYI-0.82, NJ-0.90

The Islanders remain near the top of the league (6th) at winning face-offs with 51.9%, while the Devils are 16th at 49.2%.

The Islanders have had a handful of games go into extra frames and have lost five times while the Devils have only tied three games, taking the shootout bonus point all three time.

Should be a tough game, especially the way the Islanders have been playing lately and coming off an eye opening loss to the Sabres I would expect them to come out with a little extra tonight. No Niedermayer, Pandolfo or Martin scares me into thinking that Tavares may get some good opportunities tonight. If the Devils pull out another win at home, it will come from the stick of Parise or Bergfors.

Of late, the New York Islanders have been on an up-swing. They've won their last 4 games, giving them a winning record of 5-4-5, and if the playoffs were to start tomorrow, we'd qualify for the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference. What's happened? In our first 6 we were winless and had a record of 0-3-3!

What finally clicked with this team is what i've been talking about, team synergy, everyone working together. Coach Scott Gordon hasn't changed his line combinations since last Wednesday's game against the Rangers. Our 1st forward line, consisting of Kyle Okposo, John Tavares, and Matt Moulson has combined for 5 goals in the last 4 games. Not to mention scoring coming from elsewhere, like LW Jeff Tambellini, who put up a hat trick Saturday night, or Defenseman Brendan Witt who had his first career two-goal game last night. And in other news, rookie-phenom John Tavares has 5 goals, (11 pts) in 14 games.

Goaltending-wise, Dwayne Roloson and Martin Biron are sporting a 9.14 and 9.11 SV% respectively and only a 2.7 GAA. Judging from what i've seen, Roli' and Marty will be able to hold the fort pretty well until Rick DiPietro becomes healthy enough to start games, (making Roloson & Biron serious trade bait).

Of course every season will have some downturns, but if the Islanders can keep it up, you're looking at a serious, playoff-caliber team. I didn't say the Islanders are going to win the cup just yet, but in comparison to our last few, it's been a pretty damn good start.

It was the Oilers first trip back to the Coliseum since December of 2005 and it was Steve Tamballini's second trip in two 3 days. The Oilers also had not won in the Coliseum since 1999 and the Islanders made sure it stayed that way.

The Oilers opened up the scoring in the first with a lucky bounce off the toe of RadikMartinek that would get by Roloson, the goal was credited to Ethan Moreau at 11:02. A few minutes later the Oilers had anothe great opportunity, but were denied by Roloson who made a big save. The Islanders stayed determined through and kept work t make opportunities, it payed off. Doug Weight took down two Oilers behind the Oiler net leaving allowing Matt Moulson to pick the puck up and give it a the wide open John Tavares who tied the game at one. At the point momentum shifted for the Isles as they continued to pressure the Oiler net creating several scoring chances in front of the net. The go ahead goal though, would come from an unlikely defenseman, Brendan Witt. Firing a lose shot, Witt beat Khabibulin to give the Islanders the 2-1 lead. Then Witt sealed the Islanders win by firing another shot from the point that once again got by Khabibulin, Guaranteeing an Isles win, giving him his first career two goal game, and coming within inches of a hat trick goal.no comments

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